Word: nielsen
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...roof. Four weeks a year, networks inundate the TV-viewing public with a veritable flood of plot-twisting, cringe-inducing, shark-jumping moments in the hopes they'll tune in - please, just tune in - in order to give the networks a vital boost during the critical periods when Nielsen Media Research takes its regular survey of TV viewing habits. (See the top 10 disastrous Letterman interviews...
Calling it sweeps week is a bit of a misnomer; it's actually nearly a month. The current period, which starts Oct. 29, won't end until Nov. 25. It's the result of an anachronism: Nielsen developed the concept of sweeps week in 1954, when they mailed small TV ratings booklets to households across the country and asked them to record everything they watched for a week. To keep the task of receiving and recording thousands of diaries from the sample households orderly, they started a "sweep," starting on the East Coast and moving West across the country...
Networks use the data Nielsen gathers during each period to set local advertising rates; national rates, which comprise the bulk of TV ad revenue, are set separately and based on year-round data from select families. Still, local ads are a big chunk of a TV network's revenue, so when sweeps week - er, weeks - roll around, they try and game the system by doing just about anything to make sure you tune in. (See the best and worst Super Bowl commercials...
Advertisers sometimes complain that all the stunts create skewed ratings and more expensive advertising costs. Technology certainly exists to record ratings year round, and it may only be a matter of time until Nielsen is pressured into switching their model. But TV viewers will find no such solace this fall. Networks have planned an extensive slate of stunts to get you to move their dial-Oprah will interview Sarah Palin on Nov. 16, NBC is having another Green Week starting the day before that and shows like 30 Rock and Gossip Girl are loading up on stunt-casting...
...theirs thrive on confounding people's expectations. One of DWTS's key early successes, says Green, was snagging boxer Evander Holyfield. People tuned in because they couldn't believe a onetime heavyweight champ would be hoofing it on TV. To keep its audience growing, the show - which, according to Nielsen, averaged 20 million viewers last season - has to find contestants who will bring in new fan bases, beyond its usual rotation of sports figures, minor Hollywood celebs and reality stars. The cast benefits from a range of ages and backgrounds. "Some people may tune in to see Tom DeLay, then...